With the allegations of imposition of candidates and widespread electoral malpractices that characterised the recent primary elections conducted by the leading political parties, what moral justification do political parties have to criticise general and off-season elections managed by the Independent National Electoral Commission? Ejiofor Alike asks
The outcomes of the recent primary elections conducted by the various political parties in Nigeria have shown that elections managed by political parties do not fare better than the ones conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in terms of transparency, fairness and credibility.
The primaries were widely criticised as the general and off-season elections conducted by INEC due to the widespread electoral malpractices that characterised the exercise in various states.
The All Progressives Congress (APC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Labour Party (LP) were all accused of imposition of candidates, disenfranchisement of bonafide party members and other electoral malpractices during their primary elections.
During the primaries, videos of the different political parties mocking democracy by their fraudulent counting of the number of people on queues, using Option A4, went viral on social media.
